"So here's the basics." Alex spread his hands as he looked over his gathered crew.

They didn't have their memories intact but were still the same people. It was like they had the dregs of who they were still within them, flavoring their decisions toward who they were before. He relied on that to carry them through until they regained their memories.

"First, you have Grim Aegis, a key island, one of four entrances into the Core."

He drew a circle in the dirt with the small metal rod and wrote a line with an arrow pointing at it that read 'Grim Aegis.' It looked horrible, but it was the best he could do without finding the ship. Even then, it would require pulling Mari out of the safe house where they had her stashed.

"Common knowledge." Jean nodded.

"Unless it got erased." Alex raised a finger. "I didn't know it until I broke my own gem last night."

"And that didn't let you get all your memories back," Li Wen said, looking down over the circle.

"We'll get to that." Alex tapped his rod against the circle. "One thing at a time."

He scrawled more objects into the circle, creating unconnected ovals inside it. He labeled each one quickly with a single word. When he was done, he tapped the circle again.

"The ruling nobility is the Lopold Family, and they control the access into the Twelve Kingdoms. They have enforcers called Hell Knights who keep the peace in the city; however, that's not important to us. What's important is that they've been pushed out of power by someone named Miss Malone."

"A shadow striking at a royal family." Sayed nodded, scratching his beard. "This Malone is the one that is stealing people's memories like a sneak thief in the night?"

"That is correct," Bolton said from where he leaned against the stage. "We interrogated one of their organization's thugs, and he spilled the beans and some teeth on the entire operation."

"Miss Malone is the Hand that runs the operation, and her five Fingers act to keep everything in line. We've only met one so far, Mister Deadman, though I have some memories of him before we got here."

"What's a hand?" Erin asked, crouching down over the circles.

"All I know is that there is one Hand to five Fingers, and anyone below that is called a Knuckle," Alex said. "Malone is the one who is stealing memories by using a bunch of spiders down in the sewers."

"Then it should be simple." Sayed stabbed his sword into the circle. "We go down into the sewers and remove the spiders to break the gem. Everyone regains their memories, and then we can beat this villain!"

"I wish I could say it was 'Simple as that.'" Alex sighed.

"There are at least a hundred of them down there, and that's not counting the spiders." Bolton puffed at his cigarette.

"There's also the problem of what happens when a gem breaks," Alex said. "I was out for a good minute, and then the spiders swarmed after me. If we break a gem at the wrong moment, it could kill us all."

"You said you broke one last night?" Jean asked.

"Yeah."

"I was knocked out last night and forced into a dream while cooking dinner." Jean raised a finger.

"I—." Li Wen hesitated. "I had a similar experience."

"We all had strange dreams last night," Erin whispered.

"Memories are the binds of fate that tie every person together." Jean looked around them all before focusing on Alex. "The same reason your memories are still shadowed with your gem broken. You have your memories back but do not have the connections to them restored. Those are etched not just upon your soul but the souls of those you touched."

Alex grimaced. That didn't make sense, not that he was an expert in neurology. However, maybe the rules of Erth didn't have to follow the rules of his Earth. That didn't preclude the fact that what they were dealing with was essentially magic.

Did magic have to follow the rules? He didn't know.

"So, if a gem is broken, it won't just affect one of us, but all of us," Alex said. "We have to get in, get them out, and break them when it's safe."

"I do not understand." Sayed shook his head. "If we do this, if we break all of those gems at once, how will the people react? They will find their stories false, with no one to blame. They will not know who to turn their rage upon."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"That's another problem," Alex said. "The ruling family here will probably bear the brunt of the blame, though it doesn't matter much to us. None of us are nobles."

He paused. Something tasted wrong in that sentence, but he couldn't place a finger on what it was. He knew enough about each of them to know that they were all outlaws, with all but Jean being from entirely different worlds. He didn't think that Jean was a noble. He had lived within the Twelve Kingdoms, but that was it.

So why did he feel like he was missing something? Alex shook his head. He could worry about it later.

"Regardless of what happens there," Alex said. "If we want to get back to normal and get out of here, we need to figure out how to collect the gems we need and break them in a safe place."

"That's not the only problem here," Bolton said, standing up and stomping over to the circle. "You kick a hornet's nest; the hornets sting back. If we kill all the spiders and all of these goons guarding the place, that still leaves six strong people ready to come after us. We'll need to be ready to run for the hills and through the gates to the Core the moment we break those crystals."

Everyone looked up to him like they had forgotten he was there.

"This has been bothering me," Jean said. "But I don't have a glimmer of who you are."

"He wasn't in my dream," Erin whispered.

"Or mine." Li Wen nodded.

"But that does not mean we cannot give him a chance." Sayed smiled. "He may be a brother in disguise."

"We met him on Dry Turtle," Alex said, standing up. "He's an outlaw, like us, called Charles Bolton. With some limitations, he can negate the effects of a curse on himself and things he touches."

"I'm why your leader can even talk to you at all." Bolton huffed. "And don't forget it. Until you break all those gems, you need me awake, alive, and healthy."

That was one way to put it. However, for once, Alex didn't feel like arguing. He was going on day two without sleep, and his eyes burned even though the sun was long down. He wouldn't mind a few hours of sleep even with his changed physiology.

"Maybe not a brother, but I will tolerate him." Sayed nodded, crossing his arms. "God asks for the mighty to be kind."

"We're off track again," Alex said.

"But his sounds simple," Sayed said. "We charge into the sewers, defeat the guards, and break the crystals."

"Except, we're not at full strength," Alex said. "I didn't even realize I had a second level to my curse until I broke my crystal."

"I have mine," Erin said, extending her hand as green light spilled around it. "But I don't think it is strong enough to do much."

"I have no curse." Sayed shook his head. "But, I have my skill with the sword to aid me."

"My body itself may be a curse, but I cannot sense anything beyond that." Jean nodded.

"I might," Li Wen said, looking at her own hand. "But I'm not sure."

"That's the problem," Alex said. "We're not who we were, and it'll hold us back. If we have to fight to get to the crystals, it'll be a problem."

"I can tell you that you're a crack shot if your name's true." Bolton pointed at Li Wen. "We get you a gun, and you can shoot any problems you run across."

Li Wen frowned but nodded. Alex personally didn't favor guns—they brought back too many bad memories—but he assumed there was a reason Li Wen was called 'Cold Shot' on the wanted poster. The important part was that they were all thinking about how they could solve the problem.

"Sword, guns, healing, and..." Alex pointed through them, one by one, stopping at Jean.

"My bones aren't brittle," Jean said. "I have a kick that can dent iron."

"So, we won't be defenseless," Alex said. "The question then is how we should approach the problem."

"As I said, we can charge down into the sewers, rout them, and return victorious with the gems!" Sayed's voice boomed through the park, and everyone ducked their heads down.

"That's not a good idea," Erin whispered, tapping at the circle.

"It's an all-for-nothing gambit." Bolton shook his head.

"One thing we got from the guy we questioned is that they don't want any disturbances up here," Alex said. "The more people's lives are disturbed—"

"The harder it is for the curse to maintain control!" Jean didn't shout as loud as Sayed. "It makes perfect sense. You want to keep things as simple as possible to maintain such a curse over such a large area. No major disruptions, the same routines day in and day out. It is why the haze claws at my mind, even now."

"Exactly the lives we've been living." Li Wen looked over to Alex, raising an eyebrow. "You look like you want to make a joke."

"And it's just on the tip of my brain." Alex shook his head. "Something about repeating days."

"You want to cause that disturbance," Erin whispered. "Split their forces."

Alex smiled. That was what he expected out of Erin. She may not have been as much of a planner as he was, but he had an instinct that she would rather follow a plan than just charge in. Now, he just needed to get them to understand it.

"Two teams," Alex said. "One of us will cause the largest commotion we can across the level and draw as many spiders and thugs out of the sewer as we can. The others will go down and gather up all the gems they can find. Bring them up to the surface while the rest of us escape."

For a moment, everyone paused, their eyes locked on the circle. Alex hadn't fully given away the plan yet, but he already knew why. It was risky. None of them were fighting with their full strength, or at least he didn't think they were. If they messed up or lost, some of them might not see the other side.

However, there was one thing he had on them. He had vague memories of times when they had faced long odds. He knew about fights they shouldn't have won that they still walked away from. There had been risks. Not everyone had made it, but the five were standing here now as proof that they could pull it off.

"I don't like it." Erin sighed. "But you're not wrong. There's something wrong here, and I can't deny missing something important."

"This is a grander story than what I have told of late." Sayed smiled, his grip tightening around his sword. "If this path be true, it will return me to a glory that I could only dream of."

"I feel fate itself drawing me toward this path." Jean nodded, a chuckle following. "I want to find who I was to know who I can truly be. That is the want of any philosopher."

Li Wen was the only one left, her hands in her pockets as she looked over them all. She frowned but then nodded. Shrugging one final time.

"I feel like we're missing something," she said. "Or someone. But if this will help us figure this all out, why not?"

"I understand that." Alex stood. "There's one person in my memories that I'm having trouble placing."

"The knight." Sayed nodded. "Another swordsman in the crew."

"You won't figure it out if you stand here doing nothing." Bolton shook his head. "Decide the teams so we can get this over with. I can't stay awake forever!"

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